Stuart Pound, 8th January 2013

Here is the regular write-up of our latest event at the Green Man in Fitzrovia. We had a very healthy audience of thirty people with around five newcomers.

First of all, many thanks to Stuart Pound and Rosemary Norman for being our special guests and who presented their work in the first half.

Stuart has been making experimental films since 1970 and has shown his work around the world. He started working on 16mm film in the 1970s but today works entirely digitally. He often uses found images from the internet or video-footage from commercial DVDs which he radically reworks to completely change their meaning completely. Rosemary Norman is a poet and has worked with Stuart on a number of his films, including Writing Behaviour, below. You can out more about their work here: http://www.stuartpound.info/

Ben Fox filmed Stuart talking about his work which you can see here:

The films Stuart showed in order are:

1. Codex – Extract (the last ten minutes of an hour-long film) (1979, 10’00”, 16mm)

2. Writing Behaviour (2003, 2’00”, DV) from a poem by Rosemary Norman, which she performed as a live accompaniment to the film

3. Kaleidoscopics (2001, 3’00” version, DV). It was at the premiere of this film at the National Film Theatre in 2001 that I first met Stuart

4. Postcard (2004, 3’00” DV), using a found image from c 1910

5. She’s Not There (2005, 2’00”, DV), using a found image from c 2005

6. Revernerations In Time (2006, 2’00”, DV) A compilation of Tony Blair’s sighs from an interview after the second Gulf War

7. Black And White (2013, 6’00”, DV), reusing scenes appropriated from Antonioni’s famous film “L’Avventura”. When he was a boy Stuart wrote a fan letter to Monica Vitti, c/o Michaelangelo Antonioni, Rome and got a reply!

In the interval Victor Opeyokun spoke about his animation workshop in Lewisham which contains nine animation desks and a line-tester. Please email him at this address to find out more: victoropeyokun@yahoo.co.uk.

Filmmaker Patrick Beveridge then said a few words about the mainstream demise of 16mm film as a format and what solutions filmmakers can find to this problem by using small European film labs.

We then proceed to the second half of the screening which, as usual, was an improvised programme of films which members had brought along on the night.

Programme 2

1. Barcode Inventor Checks Out by Philip Green (2012, 0’20”, DV). A welcome return from Philip and the funniest thing I have seen so far this year.
Voice artist Andrew Hamblin, who has played us his voice-reels in the past, then showed three new animations he has voiced, including one he made with his brother Thomas. It is always great to see how people’s work progresses, so well done, chaps.

3. NoPUNintendo – Boo’s Standup voiced by Andrew Hamblin (2013, 0’20”, DV). 

5. John Cage’s Musicircus by Rob Munday (2012, 6’00”, DV) – live-action video documentation of a one-day event at the London Coliseum. Absolutely amazing.

6. Ango Pango “Dreaming” by Tim Hope (2013, 2’00”, DV). Tim treated us to an exclusive screening of a brand new work.

7. Action (Extract) by Stuart Pound (2012, 6’00”, DV). Stuart then closed the evening with his most recent film, another radical reworking of a chase sequence from a famous feature film. 

Everyone was very happy with this and many stayed until after closing time.

We return on Tuesday 5th February. See you there.

Love from Martin